Opera Scotland

Roland Wood Suggest updates

English baritone.

Roland Wood studied in Manchester at the Royal Northern College of Music then in London at the National Opera Studio.  In 2000 he won Second Prize in the Kathleen Ferrier Memorial Awards.  In 2003 he was a semi-finalist at the Cardiff Singer of the World competition.

With Scottish Opera he was a Company Principal from 2002 to 2004.  He toured with Essential Scottish Opera in 2001.  Concert engagements include the Verdi Collection, Puccini Collection. and Strauss Collection. Stage appearances with the company have included Mozart (Papageno);  Donizetti (Dulcamara); Verdi (Marullo, Luna, Falstaff);  Bizet (Escamillo);  J Strauss (Falke);  Massenet (Albert Werther);  Humperdinck (Peter);  Puccini (Schaunard, Marcello, Scarpia, Sonora Fanciulla del West, Michele, Schicchi); Mascagni (Kyoto Iris);  Strauss (Storch Imtermezzo);  Debussy (Golaud); Janacek (Baron Prus The Makropulos Affair); Rachmaninov (Baron Miserly Knight); Stravinsky (Creon Oedipus Rex); Dove (Karl Marx Marx in London).

With English Touring Opera roles in Scotland include Don Giovanni and Eugene Onegin.  For an opening concert at the Edinburgh International Festival he sang Maximilian & Captain (Bernstein's Candide).

English National Opera: Mozart (Almaviva,  Papageno);  Verdi (Germont, Paolo Simon Boccanegra);  Bizet (Zurga);  Mascagni (Alfio); Puccini (Marcello, Scarpia);  Vaughan Williams (Bunyan & Pilgrim);  Adams (Kissinger Nixon in China).  He created Oedipus in Thebans (John Anderson). 

Other roles with British companies include:

Royal Opera: Verdi (Ford); Giordano (Roucher Andrea Chénier).

Glyndebourne Festival: (Nick Shadow).

Opera North: (Germont).

Welsh National: Donizetti (Nottingham Roberto Devereux);  Verdi (Germont, Renato Un ballo in maschera); Puccini (Michele, Schicchi).

Grange Park: Renato, Scarpia.

CBSO: Golaud,  Forester Cunning Little Vixen.

He has sung with Canadian Opera: Verdi (Nabucco, Rigoletto, Renato);  Puccini (Scarpia, Gianni Schicchi);  Opera Theatre of St Louis (Macbeth, Rigoletto);  Michigan Opera Theatre (Rigoletto); Santa Fe (Germont, Ford); Detroit (Rigoletto).

European work includes Stuttgart (Rigoletto, Scarpia); Amsterdam Reisopera (Germont, Renato, Enrico Lucia di Lammermoor), Concertgebouw (Forester).

On DVD he can be seen as Roucher Andrea Chénier (Royal Opera 2015).